Tag Archives: ED

Recently I have been doing more self work. It is time to jump back on my beautiful journey of finding serenity and peace within me.

I have been focussing on understanding my actions and thoughts on a deeper level.

Most thoughts and actions happen without you even being aware, so being mindful of every action and thought is something that is challenging but it has helped me understand why I do certain things.

I recently caught myself feeding into my old demon (ED) while I was at work.

I was filling in for someone and I was trying hard to do my best, but unfortunately I made a mistake and a few employees were a little frustrated.

I’m working on being the girl who brushes it off and says “Ha! Would you look at that, a mistake, better luck next time” but I’m not their yet so my ego got excited and jumped in.

My ego made me feel ashamed, fat, stupid and embarrassed and all I wanted to do at that moment was to go to the gym and lose some weight.

That’s when I caught myself.

I turned to my ED because I felt a rush of emotions and felt I was out of control.

I believe that many people turn to their ED when they are in tough situations because when you start to lose control, you feel like your body is the only thing that you can control.

Every limiting belief that you tell yourself came from someone else pushing that thought onto you.

Most of these thoughts happen when you’re a child because that’s when you are open to trust and believe people.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s call the person in the story “X”.

When I was about seven years old, I told someone I loved very much that I wanted to be a vet. The person laughed and said “hunny, you will never be able to be a vet! You need to get an extremely high mark in the High School Certificate and you simply haven’t got the brains to do it.

Now saying that to a seven year old is undoubtedly harsh but X grew up in a very harsh environment from a small child. X grew up seeing black and white. There is no such thing as dreams or beating around the bush.

So while X had the intention on helping me by saying your best off not setting your standards so high because I don’t want you being hurt if you don’t get the mark you want, I was left to feel stupid.

It was only one conversation.

It was well over a decade ago.

I have been told on countless occasions to get over it. But that is where the limiting belief first started.

Knowing where that belief came from doesn’t mean that I feel anger towards that person but it gives me the opportunity to realise and understand why I keep telling myself that belief as if it were an affirmation so I am then able to let it go.

It may take you a while to think back to where certain beliefs came from but it is only when you find the source you are then able to release it.

I was listening to Coach on Call on Hay House Radio last week and Cheryl Richardson said she was recently talking to a psychiatrist who specialises in children and said that it only takes one sentence to change a child’s path for the rest of their life.

This really shows you the innocence children have and their willingness to trust and believe in you.

Although this gives an opportunity to create limiting beliefs, it also gives an opportunity to fill them up with love, humbleness and positive self esteem. And I believe now is the time to feed your own inner child with an abundance of love and respect.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog about how I got my period back. I still smile about how ridiculously happy I was that I finally got my period back after all the years I neglected my health to serve a deadly disease.

I was stoked because that meant my body was getting healthy again. I was delighted that I did it naturally. I was thankful that it meant my body will now be receiving more nutrients out of my foods like calcium. But to be honest with you, I was probably more excited about the fact that I wouldn’t have to put on any more weight. I was at the minimum of a healthy weight range for MY body.

My partner would argue with me saying that I still had two more kg’s to put on for the sake of if I were to lose weight due to illness.

I knew what he was saying was correct as many health professionals have said it before and also just out of common sense but I felt I had reached this huge step and I didn’t want anything to rain on my parade just yet.

The next day I got servery sick. Yep, totally blame everyone who argued with me.
I got a horrible stomach bug that lead to gastro. I was literally forcing down cracker and vegemite and any foods I could stomach so I wouldn’t lose weight. I know that when I become underweight my inner demon (ED) becomes stronger so I was determined to not give in.

Anyways, regardless of my efforts I lost the weight I put on.
I had to work hard to gain it back but it took a solid 2 months.

So I started a battle with myself to gain the extra two kg’s. I fought for my health, my happiness and myself worth.
Everyone has the right to be healthy and happy. Every single person is worthy of love and acceptance.
Read that paragraph again: Everyone has the right to be healthy and happy. Every single person is worthy of love and acceptance.
For some reason I was limiting myself all of this.

I am proud to recognise now that two kg’s isn’t just weight that goes onto my thighs. Its 2 kg’s that protects me. It’s a TINY bit more of me to love and accept. It’s really not such a big freakin deal when you put your self worth first and choose to make your health your absolute number one priority.
I’m not going to lie and say that it was an easy choice to accept: to go above my minimum healthy weight for my body. For someone who has suffered from an eating disorder for most of their life that would be very rare. But it is a choice I have made. (One point for me and a kick in the ass for the ED.)

I want to really get through to you today that you have a choice in anything in life. You may not choose to become a victim of an inner demon like an eating disorder but you certainly have a choice to fight and get your health and happiness back.

Every time you look at yourself and you make a harsh comment, fight back and correct yourself by saying that you choose to see love in everything you look at.

It’s not an easy battle to fight every minute of the day but it’s certainly worth it.

Recently I have been a little quite here on The Raw Serenity and I do apologize for that.

I have been caught up in other commitments and I will admit I have neglected my “down time” which I now know is extremely important to prioritise!

Anyways on the positive side, I have tackled some serious obstacles of mine.

I have taken on some foods that I haven’t eaten in a very long time due to listening to the lies of my eating disorder and I have been trying to remove all of the bullshit brainwashing about certain foods and diets.

The media has been telling us for years that carbs put on weight. They have made us become frightened of eating any type of carbohydrate.

Just like fat, not all carbohydrates put on weight. We need a certain amount of carbohydrates daily in order for our bodies to function correctly.

More than any diet claims there is, the claim about fruit making people put on weight irritates me the most.

That irritates me just by mentioning it, so anyways the main point is ,I am not denying my body of certain foods anymore. Instead I am listening and fueling my body with a wide variety of healthy, whole foods from every food group.

Another claim that frustrates me is that vegan food can’t be delicious and also healthy whole foods can’t taste nearly as good as the processed, refined foods.

So to argue the point, I have created ridiculously delicious and nutritious banana bread /muffins!

They have:

No added sugar

Fat Free

Wholegrain

No artificial colours or flavours

No artificial sweeteners

Organic

Ingredients:

2 cups Organic Wholegrain Spelt Flour

1 tsp baking Soda

¾ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp pink Himalayan salt (or regular sea salt)

½ tsp cinnamon

1/3 Almond milk (or milk of choice)

½ cup date syrup* ( see recipe below)

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 ½ tsp organic vanilla extract

2 cups over ripe mashed bananas ( roughly 5 medium bananas)

1 tbsp stevia

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Combine dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add wet ingredients into the bowl and mix in with a spoon or hands (don’t over mix).

Pour mixture into muffin liners or bread tin and bake for 20-25mins.

* I made my own date syrup by using two handfuls of dates into the food processer and slowly adding water until it resembled a syrup consistency

So I hate to tell you I told you so but really this recipe proves the point that healthy vegan baking is truly amazing for your health and your taste-buds.

My old house mate was visiting his family about 1 hr north of me, and said we should catch up for lunch.

For most people, catching up with a friend whom you haven’t seen in a long time would be exciting, but for me it’s so much more.

Yes it’s exciting, but it’s also a nerve racking, skin scratching, panic making event that makes me want to hide in my well known wardrobe.

What will he say when he finds out I’m vegan?
What will he think of me when I say I can’t have a drink?
What will I wear!?
Will I explain to him that I’m in recovery?
Oh bloody hell, look at the state of my nails!
What if I get lost and crash on the way there?

I needed to calm down and I was overdue for a mani and pedi. Because there isn’t a vegan & cruelty free salon that I have seen (oh that’s a great business idea!) I decided to do my own mani and pedi . I bought cuticle scissors seeing as I have watched it being done many times before and it doesn’t exactly look like rocket science.

Anyway, as it turns out, it’s harder than rocket science and when performing such drastic measures, make sure tissues and band aids are on hand (no pun intended).

So after being reassured that I won’t die on the drive there and that I won’t be forced to eat meat, I said my dramatic goodbyes to my dog and hit the road.

I made it there safe and sound. I sometimes get in the habit of judging my thighs when I sit down so today I made sure I didn’t (you’re welcome, fellow drivers).

You see, although I am proud of being vegan, I do still stress over what people will think of me. So today I just tried to make my eating, not such a big deal. The game plan was to just shrug it off.

So when ordering lunch today, I asked him to order me a salad. When I did this I was thinking, god does he think I ordered this because of my ED? Does ordering just a garden salad look typical?

I didn’t want any dressing on my salad, but I didn’t ask him to tell the waiter when he ordered because I didn’t want to seem fussy and a pain.

And this my friends is where I learnt my lesson.

So my salad was vegan – score. It was fresh -score. But it was smothered and swimming in oil.

A little bit of oil on my salad is okay but it was swimming and I am not comfortable with this.

I didn’t want to seem like a bother or be a pain so I put a confident smile on my face and acted like nothing was wrong and ate it.

When I got into my car and on the drive home, my heart was pumping pretty damn fast.

I know oil is good for you and I eat oily foods all day, every day, but I wasn’t ready for this..yet!

So although I didn’t cry, kick or scream at the restaurant (you’re welcome everyone) I did, however, feel crap all afternoon.

When I really think about it, I felt mostly crap because I didn’t speak up about what I wanted. I didn’t want to be an inconvenience, and I didn’t want to seem fussy. I felt embarrassed about asking for no dressing!

I realise now that the message I send to the universe is that I’m not worthy of what I want. This has to stop.

I shouldn’t have to apologise for being vegan and asking to leave out the cheese and if they could have the dressing on the side (please).

I need to work on being confident when asking for what I want. But geez it would be so much easier if everyone somehow knew what and when I wanted something!

Sorry about the late post. I wrote this last night, as my Sunday resulted in today’s topic.

Yesterday (Sunday) I was talking to a friend about why she gave up her favourite sport.
She was ridiculously good at it and had the potential to go very far in the sport, but most importantly, she thoroughly enjoyed it.

When she told me why she stopped all of a sudden, I was shocked but I could relate. I think many of us can.

Her dad told her that it would be very unlikely to be able to make a career out of her sport or ever compete in the Olympics. I assume this was to protect her from feeling disappointed and hurt if she never reached her goal.

Every time she would say her dream out loud, she was told not to get her hopes up because thousands of people want the same dream; therefore her dream was “unrealistic”.

As a result of being constantly told her dream was unrealistic or that she wasn’t good enough, she started to believe it.

Every time she would think of her goal, she got into the habit of telling herself she wasn’t good enough and that she was stupid to even think of it.

Self hate began and in no time she quit the one thing she loved and formed an eating disorder and depression.

It doesn’t surprise me, but it will always amaze me how words can create such a powerful effect on people’s lives and wellbeing.

Negative words are always louder than positive words, and when coming from someone you love and respect, nothing could be louder.

Perhaps her dad believed he was doing the right thing by trying to protect her from rejection if she never reached her goal.

Forty+ years ago opportunities to fulfil your dreams weren’t impossible but they didn’t have the resources that we have today, so maybe he was saying what he was always told.

One thing he didn’t know was that by saying these comments and by not believing and encouraging her to fulfil her dreams, this caused her a great amount of damage.

After a lot of ground work and having to remove the negative people out of her life, she just started to take up the sport again.

I could not be more proud of her. She is such a strong person physically and mentally.

What I realised is that it is so damn important to never call any goal unrealistic.

We have so many resources these days to be able to do anything we desire if we are willing to put in the hard work and dedication.

Always encourage and support others’ dreams but most importantly believe in your own dreams.

A child or friend may change their mind on their dream job every week, and instead of rolling your eyes or saying it’s very unlikely to get that job, encourage them so they can be the best they can be.

I used to be unbelievably embarrassed about suffering from depression and anorexia because there seems to be a horrible stigma behind any kind of mental illness.

When I was younger and went for “sleep overs” I was so scared that someone would catch me taking my tablets or see them in my bag that t led me to believe I was different and I would long to be “normal” like every other kid.

A few years ago I thought I should stop pushing everyone away and explain to my close friends why I sometimes can’t go out and drink or even think about getting out of bed, so they could understand and hopefully be supportive.

Not everyone understood and I even had a comment thrown at me saying how I should be in a mental institution!

Suffering from depression or another mental illness is a tough battle to fight each and every day and when you incorporate the feeling of being alone and branded as “mental” it certainly doesn’t help the battle.

Talking about mental illness isn’t something common and unfortunately hardly anyone admits to suffering which is not only dangerous but it makes you feel alone in the struggle when in fact it’s very common.

One in five Australians will suffer from a mental illness within a 12 month period. I’ll repeat that: one in five Australians; but we still are left to feel isolated and embarrassed.

I think of my depression and anorexia like any other illness. I certainly didn’t choose to be this way. I don’t have it because I want attention or to hurt my family. I didn’t catch it like a viral infection.

I have it because it’s an illness and it’s the way I have been born.

Like many other illnesses, through scans and tests I have been told it’s something that I will have to manage for the rest of my life, as I have a chemical imbalance.

I now refuse to be embarrassed or labelled as “mental” for suffering from these illnesses because when I think about it, I should be damn proud of myself.

I am still here fighting for my health, I have created a lifestyle that serves me and is healing me and although there are still some days that are tougher than others, I am and I will always fight for my health and happiness.

Since opening up, many people and parents have asked me for advice and to talk to their loved ones who are struggling because they feel alone.

I am more than happy to help and support others in need and in fact I really enjoy it but it upsets me when people say “I don’t know anyone else who would understand”.

Until we use our voices to correct the stigma behind mental illness and to let people know that they are not alone, people will continue to suffer in the dark without any support.

I urge anyone who is suffering to speak to a loved one without fear of judgement because it’s very likely that they have been through it at some stage of their lives.

Meet The Author

Hi, I'm Lisa. Welcome to my wellness blog! I'm a plant based vegan, wellness warrior and green smoothie addict. I have done a 180 on my life to find my serenity and to take control of my health and well being. Join me on my journey of creating a happier and healthier life naturally.
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